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Hopefully by now you know that a 20 character password made up of just letters is stronger than a 6 character password that is uses symbols and numbers too. Length plays a key role in the strength of a password. Passphrases are a great way to make long passwords that are easy to remember. There’s a good article on the 1Password blog that made the excellent point that though a simple sentence is very long, it might not be as solid as you think. For example, if your pass phrase is “twinkle twinkle little star”, that’s a pretty obvious string of words to put together. The linked post has some good ideas for mixing up your passphrase so that it’s still easy to remember but much harder to guess. If you want to get truly random, they also mention a method of rolling dice to generate completely phrases with completely random words. Mix that in with a few random characters to avoid a straight dictionary attack and you’ve to a pretty solid password!

However you make your password, please make sure that it’s strong, you change it often, and you don’t use the same password on multiple sites. Or if you only want to remember one really good password, check out a tool like LastPass.

PS. If you haven’t read the comic referenced in the image above, here’s a link to the full strip.

Tyla and I have attempted a few home photo sessions to capture her big beautiful belly. You might have seen some of them on Facebook, but I thought I’d post them here too. The due date is less than 3 weeks away!

Looking for a book to read? I just finished the first book of the Kingkiller Chronicles and immediately started on the second one. It’s something like a cross between Harry Potter for adults, but that isn’t really fair to either series. Patrick Rothfuss is the author and he has spent a decade polishing these books and it really shows. The world is extremely intricate, but it’s not overwhelming. The story is engaging, but it’s easy to follow along. If you’re at all interested in the fantasy genre, check this out. And if fantasy isn’t your thing, don’t be put off by the sterotypes around the genre. While there is magic in the book, it’s used as a tool in the story, not as a main focus that keeps getting beat to death.

Leo Laporte interviewed the author on a recent episode of Triangulation. It gives a nice background into Patrick’s thought process behind the books. At the end they apparently start talking about the book, but they warn of major spoilers so I’m going to listen to that after I finish the second book. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer until book three launches because I know I’ll be itching to continue the story after I finish book two!

This past weekend, KenC, LoganB, AndyD, TimS and I headed east of the mountains to spend a day shooting guns. While there are laws governing what you can do on federal land, it’s pretty easy to find a safe and legal place to shoot. Ken had already scoped out a good spot so we loaded up a couple trucks and headed east. We ended up down a dirt road with no sign of humans as far as the eye could see (except for some trash left by previous shooters.)

The temps were in the low 90s that day, but we were all having too much fun to notice. Ken and Logan each brought about a dozen guns. Tim and I brought our shotguns and Andy was there pulling the trigger for the first time. It was a lot of fun going through gun after gun that I’ve never heard of before, much less had a chance to shoot. We went through everything from handguns to rifles to shotguns blowing up plastic jugs full of water, paper targets, a couple hundred clay pigeons and even a few jars of Tannerite that Ken mixed. Combine all that with some hot dogs on the grill and it was a fantastic day!

I’m in the market for a new gun so trying out all those guns was a big help. But even with all the new options, I spent a ton of time with my little Remington 870 shotgun. I put about 175 rounds through that shotgun! Thanks to everyone who was throwing clays and shaken up pop cans into the air for me to shoot! I even pulled off a trick shot that I saw on the web: start with a target in your right hand and the shotgun in your left, throw the target up, mount the gun and hit the target before it hits the ground.

I think we’re all eager to head back again, but we’ll have to spend some time collecting more ammo and that’s no small feat these days. Ammo is scarce and expensive. At some point this run on ammo will probably end and then the market can return to normal.

Below you can find a video and some photos. The first clips in the video were shot with a GoPro running at 120fps and slowed down to 30fps. The end is a couple of our shots at the exploding Tannerite.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been painting doors. The closet doors for the nursery were stored up in the rafters of the garage when we bought the house and they were all scratched up. The door to the nursery had a bunch of screw holes in the back of it and then we also didn’t pay the contractor to do any painting when they worked on our bathroom so the new door was unpainted.

All four of those doors are now painted and installed. Looking back at the project, I can see how a paint sprayer would have been a big bonus, but I got by with paint brushes and rollers. My strategy was to use a brush for the inset parts of the six panel door, roll over the rest of the door, and then use the brush to take the texture out of the rolled areas. I started each door with a coat of Kilz primer and then added one coat of white paint. If you try this, remember to check the angled areas of the inset panels on each door. They can collect paint globs.

I’m not 100% thrilled with the end result. We have two different types and colors of white trim in the house so these doors only match half of that, but it’s the best I could do without tackling all the trim as well. And there’s no way I have time to do that monster project right now!

Ever since there was even a hint of spring, we’ve had a bird sitting hanging out in a tree in the back yard singing the same short song over and over again. He’s at it for probably 14-15 hours a day. We’ve named him Kevin. I don’t know why it’s Kevin. That was just his name. But as I listen to him over and over and over and over again, I wonder what kind of bird he is. Can you identify him? And do you have and lady bird friends that might be interested in hooking up with him?

Over the last couple weeks, I received my NRA membership card and my Concealed Pistol License from the state. Some people cheer when they hear that and others cringe. Why did I get them? Allow me to explain…

I probably wouldn’t have joined the NRA except that it’s a pre-req for the Snoqualmie Valley Rifle Club. MikeF took me shooting there a few weeks ago and it looked like a place that I want to join. Before I can even attempt to fill out a membership form, they need proof of an NRA membership so I joined. The NRA is like that friend that says things you generally agree with but says them in such an obnoxious way that you cringe a bit. So I’m a member, and I stand with them on just about everything, but sometimes I wish their tactics weren’t quite so divisive.

As for the Concealed Pistol License, there are a few reasons for that:

• As anti-gun fever increases, I want to add one more to the stats of people who carry guns. It’s a stat that gets quoted in lots of news stories and the more of us there are, the stronger our silent voice is. If only 1 in 1000 people have a CPL, it might seem easy to get at law passed against them. But currently in Washington state, the numbers are more like 1 in 12. KIRO7 has a neat map that lets you see what percentage of your city has the right to carried a concealed pistol. (Note that everyone has the right to carry a gun in the open but you’ll probably end up getting busted for disturbing the peace.)
• There’s a 5 day waiting period if you want to buy a handgun. If you have a CPL, there’s generally no waiting period. It’s one less hoop for me to jump through and saves me a trip.
• A CPL relaxes a lot of the restrictions about transporting guns in your car. While I try hard to abide by all the rules when driving to and from the range, this gives me a little cushion in case I get pulled over and I’m accidentally doing something wrong. (This is a bigger deal in other states. Washington has very reasonable laws about transporting firearms.)

Those are the big three reasons. And of course, it does actually give me the option to carry a concealed pistol if I want to. But given that I don’t even own a pistol yet, that’s not going to happen for a while. And even when I own one, will I carry it? Probably not most of the time. I won’t ever carry until I know exactly when I would be willing to pull it out, and I’ll have to do some thinking about that.

For now my gun enthusiasm is targeted (haha) more at sport shooting and less at self-defense. Shooting is a wonderful sport that combines physical preciseness and mental control. I’m loving it!